Page 211 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume III.indd

ON COALITION GOVERNMENT 209
made very great efforts to liberate herself and to help the allied
countries during the eight years of the War of Resistance Against
Japan. These efforts have been made primarily by the people of
China. Vast numbers of officers and men in China’s armies have
fought and shed their blood at the front; the workers, peasants, intel-
lectuals and industrialists of China have worked hard in the rear;
the Chinese overseas have made donations to support the war; and
all the anti-Japanese political parties, except for such of their members
as are opposed to the people, have played their part in the war. In
short, with their blood and sweat, the Chinese people have heroically
fought the Japanese aggressors for eight long years. But for a number
of years the Chinese reactionaries have been spreading rumours and
misleading public opinion in order to prevent the world from knowing
the truth about the role played by the Chinese people in the war.
Besides, there has as yet been no comprehensive summing-up of the
varied experience gained by China during these eight years of war.
Therefore, this congress should make a proper summing-up of all
this experience in order to educate the people and provide our Party
with a basis for the formulation of policy.
When it comes to such summing up, it is plain to all that there
are two different guiding lines in China. One leads to the defeat
of the Japanese aggressors, while the other not only makes their
defeat impossible but in some respects actually helps them and under-
mines our War of Resistance.
The Kuomintang government’s policy of passive resistance to
Japan and its reactionary domestic policy of active repression of the
people have resulted in military setbacks, enormous territorial losses,
financial and economic crisis, oppression and hardship for the people
and the disruption of national unity. This reactionary policy has been
an obstruction to mobilizing and uniting all the anti-Japanese forces
of the Chinese people for the effective prosecution of the war, and
has hindered the awakening and unity of the people. Yet this political
awakening and this unity have never ceased to develop, but have
moved forward along a tortuous course, under the twofold repression
of the Japanese aggressors and the Kuomintang government. Clearly,
there have been two lines in China for a long time, the Kuomintang
government’s line of oppression of the people and of passive resistance,
and the Chinese people’s line of enhancing their own consciousness
and unity for the waging of a people’s war. Herein lies the key to all
China’s problems.